


Eyes like the Sky

by Estalfaed



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Horizon (Mass Effect), Light Angst, Mass Effect 2, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 15:18:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10127375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estalfaed/pseuds/Estalfaed
Summary: He was stuck in a moment, eyes trained towards the blue sky.





	

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He was thinking of blue eyes. Blue like the sky above him. He was thinking of running hands through raven hair, dark, silken to the touch. He was thinking of stolen moments aboard a ship two years gone and the woman who had held his heart.

What else could he be thinking of, stuck as he was, unable to move, unable to do anything. He was staring at the sky, a crystalline blue, like Shepard's eyes. There was irony in the picturesque view. A perfect day, not a cloud to be seen, sun shining its warmth, a giant alien ship looming over them all. Swarms of giant beetles floating along the gentle breeze. The smell of burning, the sounds of people screaming, or lack there of now and the buzzing and clicking of insects.

All he could think of was her, of Shepard. Of her eyes that pierced through his defenses, of her lips that invited his own. He was thinking of a woman two years gone while the colony went to hell around him. 

Kaidan Alenko, Staff Commander of the Alliance was helpless. Helpless to stop the abduction of the colonists, helpless to stop the direction of his thoughts. Of the scent of her hair, the way it shimmered in the low light of her cabin. She would always keep it tied up in a bun so severe he thought she must get migraines as bad as his own. And yet, when they were alone, just the two of them in her cabin, she would take out the band holding it in place and let the dark curls fall freely, hanging just below her shoulders. One more piece of armor she would shed, for herself...and for him. When she would no longer be Commander but Jane, just Jane. When he could take her in his arms, bury his face in her neck and breath her in, a subtle lavender that was definitely not regulation soap.

He flashed his biotics, suffusing himself in its glow, the smell of ozone briefly overpowering everything else. His heart rate increased, his blood pumped. He was flushing the toxin out of his system, Biotic metabolism burning it up. Or that was the hope. It was that or he'd have one hell of a migraine before he, what, died? Was abducted?

The invaders had just left him, walked right on by and collected the others. He had felt the rising panic when they first approached, his gun trained at the enemy and unable to pull the trigger. He had flashed his biotics uselessly, unable to form even a simple barrier. They ignored him and he had felt shame in that too. Couldn't protect the colonists, couldn't protect himself, couldn't protect Shepard.

He flashed his biotics again, willed his body to move, screamed it in his mind and felt his fingers twitch. He took a shallow breath, the best he could manage at the moment, body as it was. He felt the sweat bead on his forehead, drip into the creases of his armor at his neck.

He could hear gunfire now, sometimes it would sound close, other times far into the distance and still he could not move, could not pull himself away from thoughts of Shepard. Thoughts of her skin, soft and silky smooth. Trailing his fingers along the contours of her hips, amazed at how It could feel so different than when he would hold her hand, tough and calloused. He would trace circles along her arms and place soft kisses on her shoulders, feel her shudder as he cupped her breasts. The way those blue eyes would look at him, pupils blown from pleasure, full of so much warmth...maybe even love. He would marvel at how they could be so full and warm when he'd seen those same eyes cold, hard, like chipped ice, a raging storm. 

Once again he flashed his biotics, as distraction from the ghost of a woman two years dead. She haunted him still. No matter how hard he tried to move on, no matter how much he mourned, her ghost would not let him rest. And if on the really bad nights, when the memories hurt more than he could bear, when he'd had a few too many whiskeys and lagers, if he thought about joining her in the embrace of oblivion, well, he always managed to pull himself back. 

He could breath easier now, take deeper breaths, ribs and abdomen expanding to accommodate the pressure. He felt the the GARDIAN turret start firing before he heard it, the deep rumbling rocking through his body and then the sound wave  itself reaching his ears seconds later. And just like that he could move again, blessed relief as aching muscles were finally free once more. The turret was still firing, gunshots accompanying it. He took a few tentative steps forward and then he was off, sprinting towards the action, rifle tucked tightly in his arms. 

He took cover behind a few crates to access the situation. Husk corpses littered the area with the occasional hulking  _ something  _ else sprinkled in. A few Collector troops were still fighting but were quickly taken care of by a bald woman, covered in the telltale glow of biotics. 

The turret fired uselessly at the ship as it left the atmosphere, fleeing with the colonists. He pushed away the guilt that threatened to crush him. Later, when he was alone, maybe with a bottle of whiskey, he would let himself feel it. His eyes followed as...Delan rushed out from a bunker, shouting at the sky, hands raised as if he could physically pull the ship, and the colonists, back. 

And then all the air rushed from his lungs, his focus stuck on a pair of impossibly blue eyes. He felt it rush back, overwhelm him. Stolen kisses in dark corners of the SR-1, breathless laughter, muffled by tongue and lips. Hands clumsy with nervous energy, fumbling to undress Shepard in between desperate kisses. Making plans to visit Vancouver and the orchard on their next shore leave. Sending his mother a letter, begging her to be on her best behavior when they visited. Watching a coffin being lowered into the ground, empty, taps playing as a twenty-one gun salute cracked. Going through bottle after bottle, searching for answers when there were none.

He stepped forward. "You're in the presence of a legend, Delan. And a ghost."

He didn't listen to the man's reply, just stared into those blue eyes. Filled with apprehension, uncertainty. The eyes were the same but the face was all wrong. Everything about this moment was wrong. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to scream, he wanted to break down and weep, feeling the loss and pain all over again.

Instead he chokes out a simple name.

"John."

Her twin. 


End file.
